I have a dental office; so the copier gets occasional use--about maybe 10 copies per day. In the beginning, the quality of the copies is good, but the start up time is consuming. After two years, the quality of the copies declined--the ends of the page were illegible. Finding someone to service the machine was difficult. There were long waits on the phone with Sharp customer service. With so many other options (some of them with better longevity, more competitive pricing, and better customer support), I would look into buying other alternatives.

Sharp has THE WORST service I have ever dealt with. I had the AL-1551, and when I bought it I was told warranty would pay for repairs. What they instead do is send you a refurbished.... the refurbished I got was worse that the broken one I had. I had to sue them to get my machine fixed, which only needed a plastic piece in the document feeder (probably cost them $5 in parts). STAY AWAY

This copier is the best that I have ever used. It is perfect for my home office.

We had an old Sharp which served us well for years until its final breakdown. Parts were hard to get, and it was very old and heavy. We decided to get a new copier and focused on Sharp again. The AL-1631 arrived promptly and worked well right out of the box. Though we have had it only one week, we are very happy with it. It starts up quickly and makes excellent copies. I recommend shopping around for price as it varies quite a bit.

We are a small business and use the AL-1631 for small internal copy jobs (less than 20 pages) 1-4 times a week. We purchased this copier because our old Canon's document feeder died.

It has a short delay before the first copy comes out - maybe 15 seconds. A series of sounds let you know when it is waking up from energy save mode.

After a couple of months, we began having streaks on our pages when they were run through the document feeder, and page 60 of the manual advises users to clean the transfer charger. That solution did not solve the problem. I phoned Sharp (while our warranty is still valid) and they advised me to use glass cleaner and paper towels to clean the small strip of glass under the lid to take care of the streaks. It worked!

I rate this machine with four stars because our Canon model, after years of use, never produced streaks - via the doc. feeder or the main glass. The delay time with the AL-1631 is due to the energy save mode, so I don't fault the machine for that. And, we've never had a paper jam, and have not had to replace the toner or drum in the 10 months we've had it.

If you are considering purchasing this Sharp copier, keep in mind that it is a very basic machine. It is not intended to be a workhorse copier, and requires maintenance like anything else.